It's not an inventive name for a restaurant but Calcutta Indian Food does what it says well. The brother-sister owners are Taiwanese from the West Bengal city and opened the restaurant in Ximending a couple of months ago. Hou Yong-tian (侯勇添) used to be the chef at Spice Shop in Tianmu, so the kitchen has pedigree.
Foreigners, including Indians, form a large portion of the pair's clientele, but locals are being lured in by competitively priced set meals in the week. These range from NT$190 for the vegetarian curry and NT$280 for the lamb, including a salad, soup or drink, nan bread or rice.
Most of the Indian subcontinent's better-known dishes are listed on the menu ("hot and spicy vindaloo," bhuna and madras) but the spicy hot lamb curry mass kolhapuri (a Marathi dish) was a surprise and there is an emphasis on creamy flavors such as pasanda and murgi malai. Side dishes are plentiful and the fiery laccha, a "Delhi-spice salad" is worth trying. Rice is saffron colored and there is a selection of nan breads.
PHOTO: JULES QUARTLY, TAIPEI TIMES
I've visited five or six times and the food has always been of a good standard. It is North Indian in character, according to the owners, tending toward stronger flavors. An example of this was the chicken tandoori, bright orange and baked until it was ever-so-slightly charred. The chicken was good quality and far removed in taste from some of the fake tandooris served up in this city.
Other highlights of previous meals included the iced Darjeeling tea, lemon soda, daal soup and a refreshing homemade milk rice dessert called firni. The channa masala, a chickpea dish with a sweetness balanced by a firm but fair chili kick, come recommended. The raita yogurt is a favorite with many Taiwanese, we were informed, and teased the taste buds. The worst crime as far as Indian food is concerned, is being boring.
The decor will be familiar to lovers of Indian food around the world: Colonial-period, patterned wallpaper in a deep ochre red, a mini chandelier, a few brass fittings and a couple of India-themed pictures. In addition to the usual "fortune cat" (招財貓) waving his paw at the cash desk there is a brass statue of Ganesh the elephant god. Service is informal and friendly.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your